Always and Forever
An Easter Sermon Preached by
The Rev. Paul Debenport
April 4, 2010
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Hear God’s good Word from Matthew 4: 1, 5—7:
Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.
Then the devil took Jesus to the holy city an placed him on the pinnacle of the
temple, saying to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down;
for it is written, `He will command his angels concerning you,’ and `On their
hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash our foot against a stone.’”
Jesus said to him, “Again it is written, `Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”
And the final promise from the resurrected Jesus in Matthew (28: 20):
Remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
The Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
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We’ve been in the deeper waters this Lent. Temptation has been our specific concern, and this is the fifth and final sermon on the subject, grounded on the three temptations of Jesus in Matthew 4. Temptation was real and ever present with Jesus. Temptation is real and ever present in all of us. All three of these temptations of Jesus—the temptation to security through power, prestige, and possessions—we, too, have faced, will face, and must strive to face down over and over again: if we are to follow Christ, if we are to become less and less controlled by evil in us and around us, if we are to become more and more like Christ, if we are to become more and more full of charity and love for others as Christ wills.
We started with the fact that evil is, that evil is a powerful adversary, that evil is deceptive, seductive, and surprisingly difficult for us to recognize, since we often deceive ourselves. Evil plays to our natural needs, wants, and desires, and is an ever present threat to our faithful living. Whatever Evil’s mysterious source may be, and whatever we may choose to call it—evil, Satan, the devil, the Tempter, —the question is not whether evil is, but whether evil wins.
In today’s passage the Evil One tempts Jesus to throw himself off the pinnacle of the temple, where Israel expected their Messiah to appear, to be miraculously “saved,” which is how Israel thought their Messiah ought to act. Appealing to Jesus’ and our deep need for security, this is the temptation to idolatry, the temptation to reduce God to a means to our ends, to manipulate God to spare both Jesus and us the limitations, trials, and traumas of human, earthly life.
And “Why not?”—the Tempter purred into Jesus’ mind—“Everyone expects the real Messiah to do that.” And what a tempting appeal to attract followers, if not loving disciples. Jesus recognized that it would reduce him to a carnival huckster: “Step right up and follow me, and you, too, will experience no evil, no hurt, no heartache, no death!” Of course Jesus knew people would flock to him like ants to sugar if he offered faith as a total opiate, religion as a magic wand. But Jesus knew it was the wrong means to God’s will for a freely loving and trusting relationship with God’s beloved creatures.
But like all temptations, it wasn’t “one and done;” it came back in sweating-blood intensity in the garden of Gethsemane, when he anguished in his crisis prayer: “Spare me, O God, this pain, this unjust evil, this suffering, this `cup,’ but if not, still I entrust myself to your loving, saving care.” But again, Jesus renounced the Tempter’s seductive appeal to distrust God, his Abba. Jesus neither called upon his power to be rescued miraculously, nor did he curse or renounce God. Rather he trusted God and entrusted himself to God’s mysterious care—even when it felt like God didn’t care at all!
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Our longing for security is natural and not evil in itself, yet still, it is perhaps our deepest temptation. Deep down, we want God to be the means to our ends; we want to use God like some full spectrum antibiotic or super vaccine to spare us the pains and traumas of this life. But this would mean having only a quid pro quo relationship with God our Creator, loving parent, and friend: “You do this for me God, and then I’ll love you; then I’ll trust you, then I’ll consider following your way. Do this for me…or else!”
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Polls reveal that the majority of people who abandon the church and faith do that soon after a painful trauma in their lives—after a death, or divorce, or diagnosis of disease. Which is the sweating-blood temptation I think we all feel when we are not spared suffering and loss. The very real temptation here is to conclude that because God does not always intervene to be a means to my end, to end my suffering or the suffering of others, then God never helps us; that because God does not always spare us, then God is either powerless, malevolent, non-existent, or not good and trustable.
Surely the first disciples of Jesus initially yielded to this temptation. In fear and despair that God had not spared Jesus, they abandoned Jesus after the crucifixion. From their feelings than from logic, clearly they concluded that: since Jesus is dead, God is dead; hence, hope in God is dead; hence, Jesus’ way of saving love is dead. Therefore, the Tempter is more powerful than God. Therefore, evil triumphed.
Or did it? For then there was this scandalous rumor and brave witnesses, and then lives changed radically, moved from abject despair and gut-gripping fear, to joy and proclamation and acts of courageous, selfless love.
This Jesus—the same Jesus that had been so brutally and unjustly executed—this Jesus who had refused to use either human or Godly force to reveal the loving power of God—the power of God’s love—was resurrected, was completely and totally alive again! This Jesus whom the evil one, the Tempter, had defeated so completely, was not defeated. It was not finished! He is back from the grave, and—amazing grace!—he is still full of compassionate love, forgiving and embracing and empowering even those who had abandoned him. This Jesus who had entrusted himself to God’s care for his security, even when all seemed lost and he felt most abandoned—is alive again! Jesus was resurrected and appeared to the disciples and to many others. Hence, the power of death was defeated; hence, the power of evil was defeated; hence, hope is alive; love is alive; God is alive, more than a conqueror. God is trust-worthy and good and more than sufficient for our true security.
Christ death means that God does not always protect us from suffering in this earthly life, but Christ’s resurrection demonstrates that always and forever we are safe with God. It means that God is always with and for us, always redeeming every darkness, always overcoming every evil. Christ’s resurrection means that there is no evil so great, no injustice so atrocious, no suffering so terrible, no holocaust so horrendous, and no hell so deep that Christ has not been there and conquered it and walks through it with us to defeat and redeem it. Thus, in times of trial and trauma, the question is not “Why did God do this to me?”—God didn’t; nor even “Why did God allow this?” The question is “How shall God redeem it and conquer it again?”
Christ renounced these temptations to trust in lesser lords—possessions, prestige, and power—that we may know that he’s been tempted in every way as we are and proved that God’s way of love triumphs! Jesus went the whole distance of human life, including suffering and death, in order: to save us from the despair of lesser lords; in order to show us we can trust and entrust ourselves completely to God and God’s loving goodness; in order to free us for lives that take evil seriously, but not ultimately; in order to empower us for lives on earth that daily challenge all evil, all injustice, all suffering, knowing that the Risen Christ is with us and for us always and forever: overcoming all evil with good; all despair with hope; all hatefulness with love, and even overcoming death with life eternal and joyful.
The good news of Easter is that evil, Satan, the Tempter does not win and shall not win. The resurrected Christ—who is alive and well and full of grace and love—triumphs always and forever and ever and ever. Hallelujah! Hallelujah!
Amen and Amen and Amen.
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